Current trends in multimedia content distribution are directed to the storage of multimedia content for subsequent access or distribution. Presently, many households utilize personal video recorders (PVRs), also referred to as digital video recorders (DVRs) to store multimedia content received from a terrestrial broadcast as digital data. This data then may be accessed at a later date for display or transmission to another device, such as a cell phone or a portable video player. Current multimedia storage solutions face a choice of either content quality or storage space. As such, these conventional solutions either elect to indiscriminately reduce content quality content, thereby reducing the space required to store the data, or they elect to retain content quality, thereby limiting the amount of data that may be stored in a cost-effective manner. Accordingly, an improved technique for processing multimedia data for storage or distribution would be advantageous.